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June 26, 2007

Senate hearing tomorrow on the federal death penalty

As officially detailed here, the "Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, has scheduled a hearing on "Oversight of the Federal Death Penalty" for Wednesday, June 27, 2007 at 9:30 a.m. in Room 226 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building." (I surmise that this hearing is what prompted this new ACLU report entitled "The Persistent Problem of Racial Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty.") The list of scheduled witnesses on the two panels suggests there is, as one reader put it to me, "a little something for everybody."

Regular readers know that I have been somewhat perplexed by the fact that, while the Bush Administration has consciously sought to increase the number of federal capital prosecutions, it also seems to be supporting a de facto moratorium on federal executions based on lethal injection litigation and thus is not seriously seeking to carry out scheduled death sentences. I am hopeful that this Senate hearing will provide some more information on why states are moving ahead with execution plans despite lethal injection challenges,while the federal execution team is playing the role of the Maytag repair man.